WHAT IF ... WE BANNED BILLIONAIRES?

At the beginning of 2024 it emerged that the top five richest men in the world had doubled their wealth since 2020.

If this trend continues, the world could see its first trillionaire within a decade.

But while the richest may be getting richer, for most people it’s a different story. Over two-thirds of global wealth is located within the northern hemisphere (where most billionaires are) and globally 4.8 billion people are now poorer than in 2019. It should come as little surprise that women, racialized people and marginalized communities bear the brunt of these developments.

There is also a democratic cost. Statistics show that 11 per cent of the world’s billionaires have sought or held political office, with the ‘billionaire participation’ rate reaching as high as 29 per cent in autocracies. This over-representation of the super-rich in decision-making often results in them passing policies that ensure that their wealth, and that of their friends, remains intact.

Additionally, billionaires have taken ownership of news outlets and social media sites, censoring whoever they please. Since Elon Musk took over Twitter – renaming it X – the self-ascribed free-speech absolutist has deactivated an account that tracked his private jet use, the accounts of multiple journalists, as well as political activists, while those of previously banned figures like misogynist Andrew Tate have been reinstated.

So how can these billionaires be stopped? One idea would be to implement what political philosopher Ingrid Robeyns calls ‘limitarianism’. This is the idea that no one person should have more than an upper limit of valuable goods, particularly income and wealth. It could be ensured by state policy, enabling redistribution, reallocating money to those below the threshold, or funding public goods. Yet, as Robeyns states, this is only a partial solution: limitarianism works best when coupled with another theory. I would argue that limitarianism coupled with degrowth is the solution we need.

Vasileios Leontitsis, a globalization studies lecturer at Brighton University, makes the point that while degrowth means that economies do not grow, this does not mean that nothing grows. Instead, the focus should move from individual wealth to the care economy. Growth under the care economy could use measures like levels of education, access to healthcare and democratic accountability.

While it could be said that to get rid of billionaires we can begin by taxing their wealth, the problem remains that neoliberalism as an economic and social system prioritizes private accumulation on an individual level.

If degrowth is to work as a viable framework for our economic future, it also needs to be a global project that does not fall into the trap of neocolonialism. There needs to be a reckoning with global democratic practices and decision-making to decide how wealth is capped and redistributed.

Sure, there are some billionaires who have also called for a wealth cap, such as film producer and heiress Abigail Disney. But, these individuals are a minority. Since its inception in 2010, only one in thirteen billionaires have signed the ‘Giving Pledge’ – a promise, led by Warren Buffett, Melinda French Gates and Bill Gates, to dedicate the majority of their wealth to charitable causes.

Aside from the question of whether it should be up to the ultra-rich to decide how redistribution should happen, the effectiveness of such a pledge is dubious. During the decade the Giving Pledge has been in existence, most of its signatories have become richer.

As we see inequality deepen, more people are coming around to the idea that we need to limit wealth. According to a recent poll, one third of millennials in the US believe a cap on personal wealth should exist, the strongest level of support among all the generations surveyed.

We need not only to redistribute wealth, but to stop people becoming excessively rich in the first place to create a world that prioritizes wellbeing, democracy and the planet.

Source: The New Internationalist: The World Unspun